Bunny Munro is a door-to-door salesman of beauty products. He sleazes his way through the south of England sleeping with lonely wives, lonely single mothers, lonely waitresses, prostitutes, and well pretty much anyone with a pair of X chromosomes. Bunny is convinced his winning charm will work on any woman and when he sees a woman he instantly imagines them naked, in particular one specific section of their anatomy. Somehow he is shocked to discover on his return home from a sales trip that his depressed wife, Libby, (who is off her meds and is long aware of his infidelities) has committed suicide in their apartment- piling the table high with pizzas and bottles of coke to feed their nine year old son, and then locking her in her bedroom and hanging herself from an aircon vent. Bunny collects Bunny Jr and, after unsuccessfully trying to palm Bunny Jr off on his grandmother, embarks on a massive sales quest which is more about him desperately questing for a shag whilst his son sits in their car. Bunny drives from council estate to cheap housing areas, and Bunny Jr sits in the car reading his encyclopedia. Bunny and Bunny Jr keep seeing visions of Libby, and Bunny is mildly obsessed with the stories of a guy in a devil mask who is travelling south and is killing and raping women along the way.
Bunny is pretty much without compare one of the most repellent characters I've ever read. Cave goes to no effort to make this man at all likable especially if you are a woman reading this book- in fact the reverse is true as the book continues and towards the end there is an off hand statement about the fact Bunny date raped a woman once. As he continued to imagine woman by only one section of their anatomy (Cave actually includes an apology to Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavinge- the main objects of Bunny's lust- in the acknowledgements at the end of the book) and to assume that every woman who didn't jump into bed with him was a bitch or a lesbian or both, I started to think I've never been happier with a book's title then this one...come on KILL HIM already! Then was the point where I realised (and I'm sure this isn't giving anything away as it is an uncertainty that will dawn on all) that there was more than one Bunny Munro in the book. Bunny Jr is adorable and oddly naive for the hellish world he lives on the edge of. Bunny Jr escapes into his world of ideas and his dreams of his mother, and you just hope that his father won't rub off on him at all.
I have much love for Nick Cave even if I have much hate for his main character. The book has that perfect Cave-isque combo of darkness, laughs and dirtiness. It is a good companion/contrast piece to The Road comparing Cave's borderline abusive, ignorant father/son relationship on the road with McCarthy's beautiful father/son relationship in the face of adversity and forced relocation. If you are one of the people I mentioned in a previous post who do not like book which are frank about sex, the language of this book (though not the actions, Bunny talk about sex alot and sexualises women to the extreme but very little sex actually takes place) means it is DEFINITELY not the book for you- the same applies if you don't like cusswords as Bunny is a quite liberal with them, so much that his son has picked some of them up. In fact the cover of the edition I own got me to the point of being awkward about reading it outside the house (it is just the picture of someone's crotch which, whilst appropriate considering Bunny's obsession, would have attracted at best odd looks and at worst inappropriate leering on the public transport). Personally hatred of the main character and waiting for his death may not have kept me going were it not for quality of Cave's writing. I will say if you can't survive on hatred for the misogynist horror that Bunny is, you should look elsewhere but believe you me no-one who has read this book (at least based on the reviews I've read) likes him in the slightest.
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| Not sure where this was the cover as I've only seen two in Australia- the one I read with its crouch picture and one with someone in white rabbit costume |
Also just 'cause I can and 'cause LOVE his music, have the film clip for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Where the Wild Roses Grow featuring Kylie Minogue...not just because it was the one of the two songs that got me initially hooked on Nick Cave's music (the other being His Red Right Hand) but also because the singing budgie needs some redemption after the filth Nick Cave drags her image through in this novel.
Currently mid way through long weekend reading of fun, two books at once...more info soon....
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